Page 1 of Royal Crush
One
ALERIC
“And then Isucked four dicks for a bump.” Nothing about what I said was true, but it was worth it for the look on the producer’s face. She paled, eyes a little wider, and then she cleared her throat.
“I…see. Well, I assume that’s not going to be a problem now, is it?”
I shrugged, and I could feel my manager’s tension rising, but fuck’s sake. She was baiting me, and I was too weak not to rise to it. “Will there be coke on set?”
Anyone who knew me—anyone whoactuallyknew me—would spot the lie for what it was. But the world had decided that my teenage public meltdown in front of paparazzi during an awards show after-party was going to decide my fate for the rest of my life.
Fifteen years later and I was still a washed-up junkie has-been.
The former child actor who’d once been a household darling and ended his career.
Never mind what I was put through. Never mind the years of therapy it took before I could look myself in the eye. Shit, I stillcouldn’t date without having a cluster panic attack for the first twenty minutes, and that usually sent them running.
I wasn’t an addict. I had never been an addict. By eleven, I was being spoon-fed uppers to keep me smiling and downers to keep me compliant and another cocktail of pills to keep me from running my mouth. My parents checked out when I was five and they realized that they had less control over me than the agency they’d signed me with.
My manager was a dirty pervert, and every director wanted to see how far they could push me because I was the kind of kid who had been trained to never say no. The kid who’d been conditioned to never break down.
I was a star before there were regulations and restrictions for young children in the industry.
I was the cautionary tale for new parents who wanted their children to see the cinema stars.
And the worst part about it all was the fact that, after everything I’d been through, I still loved the business. I loved acting. I was born with manuscript ink in my veins and script writers’ breath in my lungs.
And I was good at it. Hell, maybe I would have been the best if a single adult in my life had given a shit about me before trauma dug its claws in to shape the man I would become.
But now, I was what happens when a kid with no responsibility and more cash than any tween should ever have in their possession. A nobody living in a shitty apartment I could barely afford, hopping from minimum-wage job to minimum-wage job, hoping that one studio—just one—would take a risk on me.
It took four years since I’d decided I was ready, but one finally did. A local production with a big streaming budget had decided that the youngest son in the royal family deserved his own TV show. It was based off his memoir, and it had been atotal crapshoot when I sat for the audition, but there was a tiny spark of hope in my chest, and when I got the callback, I realized that my life was on the verge of changing entirely.
This could be my big moment—my big break. This could be the role that secured me back in the hearts of not just the country but the world. I didn’t know much about Camillo. When he’d been injured and left in a wheelchair, I was in my first long stint of rehab, and when I got out, I found it hard to give a shit about anyone else besides myself.
But I’d read his Wiki when the role came available and watched a couple of interviews with him. He had a resting bitch face—something I quietly loved—and he was well-spoken and no-nonsense. People called him brave, and I could tell by the look on his face that he hated it, but I understood why. He looked people in the eye and didn’t shy away from questions or giving answers that made strangers uncomfortable.
He was hot—which I appreciated. The scraps left of my ego could admit that the one thing I hadn’t lost was my looks, so I felt comfortable portraying him. And the disability thing, well…I was new. But I also knew how much an audience would eat that shit up. So I was ready.
At least, I was pretty sure I was ready. I was trying my fucking best while I fought the urge to fling myself into the sun during this production meeting.
“Ah. Well. Mr. King?—”
“Aleric, please,” I told Amanza. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my silver cigarette case. It had been a gift from Charls Bouchant, a Frenchman turned cowboy for 1930s cinema. We’d worked together on his second to last film before it went to hell. Even at the tender age of nine, he’d known, I think, that I was going to break.
He took me out to the fanciest dinner I’d ever been to. He made me wear a tie and say please and put my napkin in my lap.It was the first time anyone had given me rules, and it was in that moment I realized how starving I was for them.
I was living in a fucking famine, and he was offering me a single night’s feast. I might have been okay after that if someone had followed in his footsteps, but I was thrown back to the wolves, and my fate was sealed.
I still remembered the look on his wrinkled, ninety-two-year-old face though—it was full of pity and a little disgust. I’d thrown a tantrum after the server didn’t want to give me whiskey because I was so used to getting my way and getting whatever I wanted.
“Do you know who the fuck I am?” I’d demanded in my tiny little voice with authority meant for a much older man.
Charls told me to stop being such a little pissant and eat my fucking steak right in front of her, making the server smile. I had never been more humiliated in my life, and I kind of loved it. It was easy to obey him. It felt good to do what someone else said.
We filmed for six hours the next day, and before he left the set, he passed me his cigarette case. “Don’t lose this. Whatever you do. It’ll bring you good luck.”
It was the one promise I kept. He died two years later, right after I turned eleven. I attended his funeral high as a kite on benzos that my manager had given me mixed into ice cream. I sat in the back with a hat on my head and wrap-around shades like somehow that would make me less recognizable.
